Abstract

The terahertz conductivities of plates of Cu and Al were measured to remain the same at 295 and using waveguide terahertz time domain spectroscopy(THz-TDS). This result was true for a variety of commercial alloys and surface preparations. Consequently, carrier scattering by lattice defects within the THz skin depth is much larger than scattering by phonons at room temperature. However, an exception was found to be the THz skin-depth layer of an evaporated Alfilm in contact with a polished Si surface. For this interface Al layer, the conductivity increased by a factor of 4 when cooled to .

Received 26 January 2007Accepted 16 February 2007Published online 23 March 2007

Acknowledgments:

The authors would like to thank S. Sree Harsha and Yuguang Zhao for their technical assistance, particularly in metalizing the Si wafer. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation.